Warburg Pincus Vehicle Buys Odwalla Juice Zombie Brand from Coke
Posted on 09/15/2021
Full Sail IP Partners LLC acquires brands. Full Sail IP Partners is a growth investor and is a portfolio company of Warburg Pincus. LMCA is involved with Full Sail IP Partners. Alan Kravetz, previously LMCA’s president and chief operating officer, leads Full Sail IP Partners operations as its chief executive officer. Full Sail IP Partners acquired the Odwalla juice brand from the Coca-Cola Company. Odwalla was founded in Santa Cruz, CA in 1980 by three jazz musicians (Greg Steltenpohl, Gerry Percy, and Bonnie Bassett) and sells juices and smoothies to retailers.
Coca-Cola purchased the Odwalla brand in 2001 for US$ 181 million. In July 2020, Coca-Cola announced the permanent discontinuation of all Odwalla products, having declared Odwalla one of its “zombie brands”. Due to sugar’s contribution to obesity, health-conscious consumers are less interested in smoothies than they used to be.
In October 1996, the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health linked 13 cases of E. coli O157:H7 to unpasteurized apple juice sold by Odwalla. The FDA subsequently announced a recall of all Odwalla juices containing raw apple juice. In 1998, Odwalla was indicted and held criminally liable for the 1996 E. coli outbreak.
In the late 1980s, Hambrecht & Quist Inc. was an investor in Odwalla.